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RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES 







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l'l<i;SKNTi:i) MY 



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The Grbivt Commoner of Ohio. 



DISCOURSE 



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IN MEMORY OK 



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DELIVERED IN THE 



First Congregational Church, 



COLUMBUS, OHIO, 



JANUARY 22, 1808, 



BY 



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Rkv. Washington Gladden, D. D. 



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RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES. 

OCTOBER 4, 1822. JANUARY U, 1893. 

TT7E have studied here, more tlian once, the lesson 
of some great life. In no other form does 
Truth present herself with so much quickening for the 
intellect, with so much invigoration of the will. For 
this reason chiefly Avas the AVord made flesh. All 
highest revelation to men must come through the form 
of a man. The storv of a life worthily lived is more 
convincing than logic, more instructive than phil- 
osophy ; it carries an element which transcends all 
the formularies of science ; it contains within itself 
all that gives the moving thrill to music, and immor- 
tality to verse. 

Thrice, already, since the summer rest, have we 
been invited to such a sympathetic study of great 
lives that had suddenly ceased from among us ; the 
Editor and Essayist, Curtis; our Quaker Poet, Whit- 
tier; the Laureate of England, Tennyson. To-night 
we are called together to reflect for an hour upon 



tlie meatiinp: of" a liH' whose siuMrMi foniiinaiion lias 
brought to this commonwealth and this nation a great 
hereavement. To the people of Ohio and especial ly 
to the people of Columbus, the death of President 
Hayes comes a great deal closer than tliat of either 
of the notable men wluun I have named. To them 
our debt was large, but it was mainly intellectual. 
For the enriching of our minds, for the quickening of 
our better purposes we owed them much. But Presi- 
dent Haves has been our neighbor and our friend; he 
has walked with iis l)y the way; he has talked with 
us at our firesides; in our public assemblies he was a 
not unwonted, and always welcome presence; in a 
great manv of the concerns in which our hearts were 
most engaged, he was our wise counsellor and stanch 
helj>er: the abrupt and unexpected cessation of a torce 
like this is a real shock to our community; and the 
absence of such a comrade from our toil, of sudi a 
friend from our familiar circles, brings a sense of ])er- 
sonal loss and loneliness. 

I have named him the (Treat Commoner. This title 
was given lirst to William Pitt, in the days before he 
was Earl of Chatham; it wa> the ])opular tribute to a 
lofty spirit who was "the lirst to discern." as one of 
\\\< liioirrapher's ])hra>('s il. ''that public oiiinou. tliouirh 



7 

generally slow to form and slow to act, is in the end 

the paramount power in the state ; and the first to 
use it. not in an emergency merely, but throughout a 
long political career." William Pitt was the Great 
Commoner so long as he kept in touch with the peo- 
ple ; no man ever had greater power in England ; he 
was put at the head ol" the greatest ministry that ever 
ruled England, not because King or Parliament wished 
it, but because the people would have it. Years after- 
ward, when he suffered himself to be elevated to the 
peerage, he came down from his throne. The title has 
descended to the man who is now Prime Minister of 
England, and who has won it very much as Pitt first 
won it, by identifying himself with the people. Warned 
by the fate of Pitt, it is not at all probable that Glad- 
stone will ever be tempted to exchange for the bauble 
of a peerage that place which he holds in the hearts 
of his countrj^men. 

Our own Great Commoner has won the title by the 
same qualities. He, too, was essentially and pre-em- 
inently a man of the people. From the common 
people he rose, and he never rose above them. That 
persistent determination of his to walk in the ranks 
in the Grand Army parades has been censured by 
some as afiectation. But to President Hayes it was 



8 

the siiiii)le exi)ivssi()n of a lact wliidi ho \voul<l neither 
deny nor ignore. He was a plain citizen, nothing 
more; he would not masquerade as anything else 
While he hehl the chief magistracy of the nation he 
magnified the oflice ; when he laid it down, he returned 
to his place, lie knew the dignity of otfice; he knew, 
also, the dignity of ]>rivate citizenship. 

The relations of President Hayes to the Common- 
wealth of Ohio are. as I have said, peculiarly intimate. 
He was born upon iier soil; most of his education was 
gained in her schools; all his professional life was 
spent in tliis State; the troops that he led in the war 
of the rebellion were nearly all Ohio soldiers; Ohio 
sent him to represent her in the National Congress, 
and thrice made him her (lovernor; it was from the 
Capital of Ohio that he was translated to the White 
House at Washington ; and since he laid aside the 
arduous burdens of government, this State has been 
his constant home. To multitudes in other States his 
great services have endeared him ; but Ohio has the 
largest share in his renown. I think it must be allowed 
that he was iier greatest citizen — the linest product, 
on the whole, of lu-r century of history. Tiiat is a 
large claim, but I advance it with some contidence. 
When the future historian comes to lest bv the stau- 



d 

dards of impartial criticism, the characters and the 
services of the men of Ohio who have been at the 
front in the nineteenth century, I tliink that the name 
of Rutherford Birchard Hayes will lead all the rest. 
Grant and Sherman and Sheridan were greater gen- 
erals; Garfield was a greater genius; and there have 
been greater orators and greater jurists and greater 
educators; but take him all in all, for an all-round 
man — citizen, soldier, statesman, scholar, man of 
books, man of brains, man of affairs, husband, father, 
philanthropist, neighbor, friend, there is not another 
who will measure quite as large as the good man who 
has just gone. 

I have named Garfield; there is a somewhat strik- 
ing parallel between the origin of these two Ohio 
Presidents. Abram Garfield came, with a little family, 
from Central New York to Cuyahoga County in 1830; 
made a fairly prosperous beginning of a home there, 
and suddenly died leaving a widow with four young 
children, the youngest of whom, then but two years 
old, was to be the future President. 

Rutherford Hayes, a thrifty farmer and trader of 
Vermont, came to Ohio in 1817, and settled in Dela- 
ware, where, after five years of successful industry, he 
died, leaving a wife and two children. Three months 



10 

alter }ii< latlior*? initim-ly <leath. liutlioiionl Birchard 
Hayes was l)orii. 

Neither nl' tliese l)oys ever knew a fatlier's care; but 
each had a courageous and devoted mother, and owed 
the best part of liis character to her inlluence. 

The home of the Garlields, alter the death of the 
father, was for years the abode f)f pincliing penury; 
there were months when the only food was the meal 
of Indian corn, and when the m(»ther went -upperless 
to bed that the children might not be hungiy. From 
sucli want as this the children left fatherless in the 
Delaware home did not suffer; enough was left to keep 
them in comfort, and although frusralitv was necessarv, 
there was always plenty. The unmarried brother of 
Mrs. Hayes, Sardis Birchard, a man oi refined taste, 
of great public spirit, and of ample means, was her 
good counselor and the guardian of her children. H. 
was the fortune of this uncle, which, in later life, 
President Hayes received by bequest; it was in the 
home built by his uncle in Fremont, that the Presi- 
dent has lived since 1874, 

Not long after her lni>baiid"s .k-ath, the eldest son of 
.Mrs. Hayes was drownetl; and there were left to the 
widow oidy two of her children. Willi the sister who 
was only a viar or two his senior, Ivutherford Haves 



11 

grew u\) in a most dear and lender adection. The 
lamily lived in a plain brick house in the village of 
Delaware, but there was a farm in the vicinity from 
which they drew many of their supplies, and to which 
the children were always fond of resorting. Mr. 
Howells's sketch of these early years will bear reciting: 

" The greatest joys of a happy childhood were the 
visits the brother and sister made to the farm in the 
sugar season, in cherry time and when the walnuts 
and hickory nuts were ripe ; and its greatest cross was 
the want of children's books, with which the village 
lawyer's family was supplied. When the uncle Birchard 
began in business he satislied their heart's desire for 
this kind of literature, and books of a grave and mature 
sort seem to have always abounded with them. They 
read Hume's and Smollett's English history together; 
the sister of twelve years interpreted Shakespeare to 
the brother of ten ; they read the poetry of Mr. Thomas 
Moore, (then so much finer and grander than now) 
and they paid Sir Walter Scott the tribute of drama- 
tizing together his 'Lady of the Lake,' and were duly 
astonished and dismayed to learn afterwards that they 
were not the sole inventors of the dramatization of 
poems — that even their admired ' Lady of the Lake ' 
had long been upon the stage. The intluence of an 



ii 

okler sister upon a generous an<l manly boy is always 
very great ; and il is largely to this sister's unfailing 
instincts and ardent enthusiasm lor books that her 
brother [owedj his life long pleasure in the best litera- 
ture. She not only read with him; she studied at 
home the same lessons in J^atin and Greek which he 
recited privately to a gentleman of the place [it was 
.Judge Sherman Finch, of Delaware, with whom the 
lad began these studies] ; she longed to be a boy, that 
she might go to college with him. In the futile v:ay 
she must, so remote from all instruction, she strove to 
improve herself in drawing and painting. One of the 
tirst schoolmasters was Daniel Granger, 'a little thin, 
wiry Yankee,' of terrible presence, but of good enough 
heart, wh(»m the love he bore to learning obliged 
to llog boys of twice his own bulk, with furious threats 
of throwing them through the school house walls, and 
of making them 'dance like parched peas,' — which 
dreadful behavior and menaces 'rendered all the 
younger children horribly afraid of him' and perhaps 
did not so much advance the brother's and sister's 
education as tlieir j)rivale studies and reading had 
done; that is fre(ju<'ntly the result of a too athletic 
zeal for letters on tlit- part of instructors. The chil- 
dren were not separated for any length of time until 



13 

the brother's fourteenth year, when he went away to 
the Academy at Norwalk, Ohio, and after that they 
were little together during his preparation for College 
in Middletown, Connecticut, and his College years at 
Kenyon College, Ohio. But throughout this time they 
wrote regularly to each other; she took the deepest 
interest in all his studies ; their devoted affection con- 
tinued in their maturer life, and when her death 
parted them it left him with the sorrow of an irrepar- 
able loss." 

The Middletown principal strongly urged that Ruth- 
erford should go to Yale ; but in the family councils 
it was judged inexpedient. The necessary expense at 
New Haven, said the Connecticut dominie, including 
everything except clothing and pocket money, would 
range from $150 to $200. That was in 1838. The 
frugality of the family life is indicated by the fact 
that so much as this could not well be spared, though 
it is probable that the wish to see the boy a little 
oftener than would be possible in that banishment, 
helped to fix his location as a student at Kenyon 
College. His preparation for College had been 
thorough, and he took up the work of the Freshman 
year with no sense of a burden. I must find room 
here for another bright paragraph from Mr. Howells : 



14 

"His fellow students of that day remember his 
overflowing jollity and drollery more distinctly than 
his ardor in study, though his standing was always 
good. Even in the serious shades of Middletown his 
mirthful spirit and his love of humor bubbled over 
into his exercise books, where his translations from 
Homer are interspersed with mock-heroic law- pleas 
from Western courts — evidently transcribed from 
newspapers — and every sort of grotesque extrava- 
gance in prose or rhyme. The increased dignity of 
a collegian seems to have rebuked this school-boy 
fondness for crude humor; a commonplace book of 
the most unexceptionable excerpts from classic authors 
of various languages records the taste of this time, 
and the reflections on abstract questions in young 
Hayes's journals ai'e coiiimonly of that final \vi<il()m 
which the experience of mankind lias taught us to 
expect in the speculations of Freshmen and Soph- 
omores. They are good fellows, hearty, happy, 
running over with })ranks and jests, and joyous 
and original in everN'thing but their philosophy, 
which must be forgiven them for the sake of the 
many people who remain Sophomores all their lives. 
Hayes was a boy who loved all honest manly sports. 
He was a capital shot with the rifle, and ho allowed 



15 

a due share of his time to hunting, as well as fishing 
— to which he was even more devoted — swimming 
and skating." 

At the first Christmas vacation he walked home — 
forty miles— in twelve hours; and after Christmas 
returned on foot to College through snow four inches 
deep. It was a vigorous lad of sixteen who could 
venture on a feat like that. It reminds us of 
Carlyle trudging from Annandale to Edinburgh, in 
his college days; and gives us a glimpse of the 
hardships undergone by college boys of a day not 
very remote, in pursuit of education. The path is 
easier in these days; I wonder if the prize at the 
end of it is w^orth as much now as it was then? 
That discipline of heroic effort and heroic sacrifice — 
I wonder if anything in the great laboratories, and 
the great libraries, and the multifarious courses of 
instruction, quite makes up for the lack of that. 

Young Hayes was a jovial comrade and a vigorous 
lover of out-door life, but he was a good student. 
His diary shows how seriously he takes himself in 
hand ; how frankly he recognizes his own defects and 
foibles and sets himself to mend them; how eagerly 
he looks forward to the life before him. He is 
going to be a lawyer, and he sees that that means 



16 

hard work: Vmt lip ip not afraifl of it. Political 
contests interest him keenly ; he does not disguise 
from himself the fact that he may take part in 
them by and by, nor does he blush to own to him- 
self that he has aspirations for service in this line. 
But there are a few sentences from this college boy's 
journal which possess great significance, for they 
contain the master light of all his seeing. '' The 
reputation which I desire,'' he says, " is not that 
momentary eminence which is gained without merit 
and lost without regret ; " and then he copies and 
adopts this golden maxim : " Give me the popularity 
that rims after^ not that lohich is sought for.'' It 
was the elder Pitt — the Great Commoner of Eng- 
land — who said that first, but hardly lived up to it. 
The great Commoner of Ohio made the sentiment his 
own in his boyhood, and never swerved from it to the 
end of his life. He never held an ofHce to which 
he asked any man to nominate him ; he never wore 
an honor that was not freely conferred upon him. 
He could no more have been an oliioe-seeker than 
he could have been a pickpocket. P]verv instinct of 
his nature would have revolted at the suggestion 
that he enter the political field as a candidate and 
try to capture a nomination. 



17 



This might serve to indicate the temper nnd quality 
of this jovial-hearted, serious-minded, high-spirited 
boy. But there is another little sketch written by 
one who was in college with him that 1 must let 
you see. 

'•Hayes was the champion in college, in debate, 
class-section, and in the foot-path; cheerful, sanguine, 
and confident of the future, never seeing cause for 
desponding ; was a young man of substantial physique ; 
in my whole acquaintance I never knew of his being 
sick one day, and so free from any weaknesses as 
to seem indefatigable. His greatest amusements were 
fishing and chess. In company he was humorous to 
hilarity; told quick, pungent stories, many of which 
I remember with laughter to this day ; took things 
as they came; used to laugh at the shape of our 
boarding-house roast beef, but still ate. 

'^ I do not think he had many intimate friends. 
Those with whom he was intimate were, and still 
are, the best men of my acquaintance. I don't 
remember a single man with whom he was intimate 
but that has been successful in his vocation. * * * 
In his political labors I am sure he never entangled 
himself by promises, or by such intimacies as to bind 
him, but never shrank from tackling any subject or 



18 



measure of policy when brought to him. lie never 
walked around anything, but took it by the horns 
and shook it, or was shaken. I think him a square 
specimen of an Anglo-Saxon honest man, stubbornly 
square in his views; of simple ideas of life; that is, 
he had such ideas as would make him prefer heap- 
ing round measure of good to pretension and false 
appearances. 

" The independence of his character was shown on 
commencement day at Kenyon. He was valedictorian, 
and I remember how grand lie looked in my boy 
eves, because he was not able to have splendid, new 
clothes, and was independent enough to do without. 
That was the first impression made on my mind, 
evidencing a pure, thorough self-sacriiice. I was but 
sixteen years old, and I think 1 see him now, with 
what we knew then as a box coat with side-pockets, 
when ail the rest were dressed in new black cloth 
frock-coats." 

Any one with an eye lor a man will detect one 
liere, I think, in this twenty-year-old boy stepping 
out of college at tiic head of his class, with :i dignity 
and force of character that doesn't need to borrow 
much from the tailor or the dancing-master. He i.s 
at the head, thus far, and I don't think that we 



19 

shall look for him in the rear at any point in the 
march. 

From Kenyon he comes to Colnmbus, and here 
began, in 1842, his law studies in the office of Spar- 
row c<c Matthews, keeping his hold on the good 
literature all the while, and beginning, also, the study 
of German, After ten months of this private study, 
good fortune sends him to the Harvard law school, 
where the attraction, mentioned in his diary, was 
" the instruction of those eminent jurists and teachers. 
Story and Greenleaf." Rare, indeed, was the oppor- 
tunity of personal contact with these giants of juris- 
prudence, whom the law student of to day can know 
only through the desiccated medium of treatises and 
text books. The sketches of these two great charac- 
ters, and of their methods of instruction, which Ave 
find in his diary, show how deep was the impression 
which they made upon his mind. To Story, especially, 
does he continually return, with notes of admiration 
for the versatility, the humor, the unstudied eloquence, 
above all the lofty ideality and conscientiousness of 
the great jurist. It was much more than a good 
knowledge of law that he gained in this school — he 
gained, also, the confirmation and enlargement of all 
the best purposes of his life. 



20 

In the stimulating literary atmosphere of Cam- 
bridge and Boston his tastes are gratified; he hears 
lectures by Mr. Longfellow on literature; he listens 
to Mr. Bancroft, and President Sparks, and Richard 
Henry Dana ; at the political meetings, where Web- 
ster, and Choate, and Winthrop, and John Quincy 
Adams are speakers, he is an eager and observant 
auditor. In 1844 his studies are completed; he is 
admitted to the bar, and begins the practice of the 
law in company with Mr. Ralph P. Buckland, in 
the town of Fremont, then known as Lower San- 
dusky, 

But the overwork ol' the last few years had told , 
upon him, and there were grave signs of pulmonary 
trouble. He was compelled, very speedily, to give up 
all work, and to l)etake himself to the sunny South, 
where, with an oUl Texan class-mate, a few months of 
out-of-door life brought him perfect restoration. 
Returning, he paused lor a few days at Cincinnati, 
and then determined to make it his home. Another 
law partnership was formed, and the young man sat 
down, his law books supplemented always l)y the best 
literature of the day, and waited for the coming 
clients. The young lawyer is a])t to iiave plenty 
of time to review his legal bludies; but iiuL every 



21 

young lawyer finds so much recreation in other good 
books as young Hayes seems to have done. He 
was soon a member ot a famous literary clul) of 
Cincinnati, including men like Chase, and Corwin, and 
Ewing, and Hoadly, and Stanley Matthews; and the 
meetings of" the club were full of mental invigoration 
and refreshment. Presently, the clients began to 
arrive — not in troops, of course, but with encouraging 
frequency. A notable case that soon occurred was 
that of a poor, under-witted creature, Nancy Farrer, 
who had been made the dupe and tool of a fiend, 
and under his instigation had poisoned several persons. 
To her defense he was assigned by the Court. Mr. 
Hayes believed her to be mentally incapable of 
crime, and gave himself with all his energies to the 
task of saving her life. At the first trial she Avas 
convicted, but a writ of error was granted, and in 
the Supreme Court his plea was triumphant; the 
judgment of the court below was reversed; the prisoner 
was granted a new trial; but before that could take 
place an inquest of lunacy pronounced the poor 
creature insane, and she was sent to the asylum. 
This victory gave Mr. Hayes much reputation, and 
his practice soon began to increase. 
It was about this time, in December, 1852, that 



ho was married to Miss Luoy Ware Webb, of Cin- 
cinnati, or a life that was lull of felicities, this 
was the one most benianant fortune. Rarely. I suppose, 
has any wedded pair been more happily mated; 
each found in the other all that choice could com- 
pass or heart ct)uld crave; and the home set u]) 
forty years ago in Cincinnati came a})out as near to 
the ideal as we are apt to come in America. Many 
of you knew Mrs. Hayes, as I did not; and 1 will 
not attempt iier portraiture. But the whole nation 
knows her as one of the noblest of our matrons, 
illustrious for her grace, her winning kindness, her 
lofty character; worthy to rank with ]\[artha Wash- 
ington and Abigail Adams, among the highest types 
of American womanhood. Ivutherford Birchard Hayes 
was a pretty well-lniilt man already, but this mar- 
riage brought him a great reintbrcement. To such 
an intluence as this his mind was open; and it is 
perfectly safe to say that to wiiatever was lofty in 
his aims or heroic in his endeavors the judgment of 
his wife gave conlirmation and support. 

In the Fremont campaign Mr. Hayes was an active 
participant, and a mourner, of course, at the Path- 
tinder's defeat. When ihc next campaign came on 
\iv threw himself into il willi new ardor, and hailed 



23 



the election of Lincoln as tlie bee:inninp; of the end. 
And when Snniter fell and the first call for troops 
was heard, his answer was prompt and clear. 
"Judge Matthews and I,'' so he wrote on May 15, 
186J, "have agreed to go into the service lor the 
w;y._if possible, into the same regiment. I spoke 
my feelings to him, which he said were his own, 
that this was a great and necessary war, and that it 
demanded the whole power ol' the country; that I 
v;oiild prefer to go into it, if I kneio that I icas to 
he killed in the course of it rather than to live 
through and after it without taking any part in it." 

Soon a OoloneFs commission came to him from 
President Lincoln — probably at the suggestion of 
Secretary Chase; but he sent it back; he knew he 
was not yet fit to lead a regiment ; he would begin 
lower. Meantime he was studying Hardee dili- 
gently, and in a few weeks a Major's commission 
came to him from Governor Dennison, assigning him 
to the Twenty-third Ohio, whose Colonel was Rose- 
crans, and whose Lieut. Colonel was Stanley Mat- 
thews. Two days later he was here at Camp Chase; 
and by the 25th of July the regiment, raw enough, 
doubtless, was on its way to West Virginia. 

I cannot tell the story of that faithful and heroic 



■2 4 

service. Il is cMi()u;rh to say tliat Kiitlierlonl Hayes 
proved liinisell' a clear headed, capable oflicer, and 
a gallant leader ol' men. Cool and unimpassioned as 
he ordinarily seemed, he was a dashing leader of a 
charge, and his bravery on many a hotly contested 
lield was amplv demonstrated. Four times he was 
wounded — once or twice severely; but he never left the 
field while he had strength to stand. He never sought 
promotion, but his service demanded it, and the end 
of the war found him wearing the epaulettes of a 
major general bj' brevet. 

In the last year of the war, he was nominated 
for Congress while in the field, and somebody was 
so infelicitous as to propose to him that he get a 
leave of absence and come home and stump his 
district; '"Your suggestion," he answered, "was cer- 
tainly made williout reflection. An officer fit for 
duty, who at this crisis would abandon his post to 
electioneer for Congress, ought to be scalped. You 
may feel perfectly sure I shall do no such thing.'" 
He was elected, nevertheless ; but he did not take 
his seat until the war was over, and his soldiers 
were mustered out of the service. 

It was in December, ISOi"), that he first assumed 
liie duties of i«'iiiosi-iituli ve at Washington, mid at 



25 



once began, in his qniet, unostentatious way, to serve 
his country. As Chairman ol" the Library Committee, 
his care was given to the perfection of that great 
instrument of knowledge; '"chiefly by his efforts the 
space and material were increased threefold." He 
made few speeches ; to one who wrote urging that 
he add to the wordy deluge, he answered curtly: ''I 
am disgusted at the shameful waste of time and 
patience the so-called orators of Washington make." 
Before the end of his term he was renominated by 
acclamation, and re-elected by a majority greater 
than that of any other candidate upon his ticket. 
But Ohio had other work for him, and much against 
his own will he was called out of Congress in 1867 
to lead his party as its candidate for Governor in a 
contest with the strongest opponent in the State, 
our distinguished townsman, the Honorable A. G. 
Thurman. Victory in such a combat was surely a 
mark of distinction. In 1869 he was renominated, 
again by acclamation; and again was successful against 
no less an antagonist than the Honorable George H. 
Pendleton. At the close of this period he returned 
for four years to private life; when he was again, 
after the most positive refusal (o permit the use of 
his name as a candidate, dragged from his retire- 



26 

ment in V'roinoTil. ;inil elected for the fliird time 
Governor, this time over another very strong oppo- 
nent, the Honorable William Allen. It was this 
victory that made him President. His reputation had 
l)y this time liccome national; the people of the 
nation iiad come to understand snmethinii- of his 
straight-forward honesty and devotion to ])rinciple ; 
and although there were presented to the Conven- 
tion of 1S7(), iiuitc a niiniher of names of gentlemen 
who had (daims upon the oflice. and who had com- 
passed sea and land, to secure the nomination, the 
one man ^vho iiad not lifted his linger to gain it w^as 
chosen in their stead. 

Of the painful contest which linally put General 
Hayes in possession of the Presidency, it is not lilting 
that I should speak in this place, at any length. For 
many months the result of the election was left in 
doubt, and party passion w^as so intlamed tinit there 
was danger ot' revolution. Opinions formed under such 
circumstances are not apt to be judicial; anil it is not 
easy for men on one side to get the point of view of 
their opponents. President Hayes has l)een bitterly 
censured, t)y a few persons, ever since that day. for 
accepting an odice which was tainted with fraud. For 
my own part, with the most sincere desire to preserve 



2 7 

in the whole controversy a judicial frame of mind, and 
with grave doubts, all the while, as to whether his 
election was beyond question, I thought at the time, 
and have always thought, that General Hayes did 
exactly what he ought to have done; that his good 
sense and his patriotism were never more manifest 
than when he accepted, without hesitation, the office 
by law conferred upon him, and proceeded without 
faltering to discharge its duties. 

It must be remembered that tlie question of the real 
rights in this case was a very diflicult one. On one 
side the suflVage had been tainted by stupendous 
fraud; on the other it had been perverted by shame- 
ful violence. AVhich was the greater wrong, I do not 
believe that an archangel could have told. But, after 
anxious days, the Congress had determined upon a 
method by which the dispute should be settled. Tlie 
tribunal thus created was certainly a legal tribunal, 
the highest in the land. By that tribunal the office 
was given to General Hayes. What could he do but 
take it? To refuse it would have been to invite revo- 
lution and anarchy. 

1 beg to quote, in this connection, what I wrote and 
published at the time respecting this unhappy busi- 
ness. "To prove that one of these candidates is not 



28 



cnlitled toMIie elecloral vote of either of these states 
is iiol to prove thai the other candidate is entitled to 
it. The election was vitiated in several states by fraud 
and intimidation. And it would be diflieult tor a per- 
fectly unprejudiced judge to (K'teniiiiie which of the 
two candidates had the better moral riirht to the otfice. 
'•When, therefore, it is demanded that .Afr. Hayes 
shall resign because his title to the Presidency is 
tainted with fraud, the question arises whether any- 
body has a belter title. Doubtless the irregularity of 
this process by which he was put in power has greatly 
distressed him, as it has distressed all patriotic citizens. 
But the last election was. in fact, no election. Who 
was rightfully the President it was impossible to 
determine. Somebody must be invested with the otiice. 
And the Congress at length agreed upon a plan by 
whirh the matter should be settled. By that plan Mr. 
Hayes was designated. His legal right to the olfice 
is as good as the National Legislature and the Supreme 
Court can make it. His moral right is as good as that 
of Mr. Tilden and belter than that of anybody else." 
This statement may not express the opinions of all 
honest men; but it expresses the opinon of one who 
tried hard to see the rights of the case; and 1 have 
no doubt that this was subslantiallv the view which 



President Hayes took of the situation. That his accept- 
ance of the Presidency was regarded by him as a 
patriotic duty, nobody who knew him could question. 

The only utterance of his during that exciting con- 
troversy was a private letter to Senator Sherman, 
afterwards published : 

" You feel, I am sure, as I do about this whole busi- 
ness. A fair election would have given us about forty 
electoral votes at the South — at least that many. But 
we are not to allow our friends to defeat one outrage 
and fraud by another. There must be nothing crooked 
on our part. Let Mr. Tilden have the place by vio- 
lence, intimidation, and fraud, rather than undertake 
to prevent it by means that will not ])ear the strictest 
scrutiny." 

It was not possible for Rutherford Hayes to say 
anything else but that, or to do anything which was 
essentially contrary to that. 

•How manfully he took up the duties of his high 
office, and with what patience, firmness, and courage 
he discharged them, there is no time now to tell. That 
the administration of Mr. Hayes was in all respects 
the ablest, the purest, and the most successful adminis- 
tration that this country has had since the death of 
Abraiiam Lincoln is an opinion for which I am pre- 



30 

pared to give good reasons. The reins of government 
were placed in liis hands at a time of the greatest 
difficulty ; every influence was hostile ; his party was 
in a minority in both houses of Congress ; his exasper- 
ated opponents were by no means loth to hamper and 
cripple liim; and against all these discouragements he 
steadily carried forward his administration on firm 
lines of well-chosen policy until he had won the con- 
fidence of the whole American people. " The Presi- 
dent,"' says one biographer, "found the country greatly 
agitated by antagonisms and alarms ; its currency 
debased; its industry and trade depressed, and its 
credit unsettled, and subject to the issue of an exist- 
ing crisis unprecedented in its bearings. He left it at 
peace in all sections, with a currency unequaled in 
stability and abundance; with industries and trade in 
all branches at the maximum of liealthl'ul activity, and 
with the public credit higher tlian ever before, at liome 
and abroad, and second to that of no other nation."' 

One of the most distinguished supporters of Mr. 
Tilden was Charles Francis Adams, Jr. Alter the 
close of the Hayes administration, Mr. Adams, speak- 
ing at a meeting of the Kelbrm Club in New York, 
volunteered this testimony : 

" President Hayes was no choice of mine. 1 did not 



31 



vote for him. I never considered him honestly elected, 
though he was legally inaugurated. Still, bygones are 
bygones, and as a fair-minded man I gladly and pub- 
licly concede that President Hayes's administration, 
taken as a whole, has been no less honorable to him- 
self than creditable to the country. It has been 
cleanly and honest and of good repute. That, in some 
respects, it has fallen short of its own great promises, 
is apparent to all the world. But that is of course. It 
could not have been otherwise, for it promised the 
impracticable. Taken as a whole, however, it has been 
an administration which will bear comparison with the 
best and purest of those which have preceded it, and 
it is an administration which the great mass of those 
who mind their own business would be glad to have 
continued tor the next four years." 

The friends of President Hayes can aftbrd to let a 
sober verdict like that stand as the sufficient answer to 
the vilification of those creatures who pursued him 
with their malice while he lived and now crawl forth 
to spit their venom on his new-made grave. There is 
a class of miscreants in whom a character like that of 
Rutherford B. Hayes awakens an instinctive antago- 
nism. Their abuse is the unfailing meed of every 
honorable character. They are as sure to lly into a 



32 



passion at the sight of a good man as the devils were 
to cry out when the Man of Nazareth appeared. One 
of the highest credentials of Mr. Hayes to the posses- 
sion of an unsullied character is the fiendish maliirnitv 
with which in certain quarters he has been pursued 
and assailed. 

Let me seek, now, in a few closing paragraphs, to 
set forth what seem to me the elements of his great- 
ness. 

And first, I would name the simple dignity and 
manliness of his habitual conduct. There was no sur- 
plusage of manners; there was always just the simple, 
sincere, unpretentious gentleman. " Xor does he," said 
one who knew him well, '• wear a smirking face, as if 
he were a candidate for admiration : but a fine sunny 
countenance, such as men and women respect and 
children love. He doesn't run to meet you, and call 
you 'my very dear sir!' He takes you by the hand, 
with a cordial kindness wliich recognizes the universal 
brotherhood of man, and impresses you that he is a 
man who gets above nobody, and nobody gets above 
him.'' An old citizen of Columl)us. who has always 
been radically opposed to President Hayes in politics, 
said yesterday: "I have always loved Hayes, ever 
since he was here in Ihe Governor's uliiee. 1 was a 



33 

clerk ill one of the departments in the State House 
then; and whenever he wanted any information in the 
office, instead of sending a messenger, and ordering 
somebody to hunt it up for him, he was apt to come 
round himself, and sit down by the clerk, and look 
matters over with him, in a perfectly friendly, unpre- 
tending way. He put on no airs because he was Gov- 
ernor; he was just a man like all the rest of us; and 
I formed a very strong personal attachment for him." 

His sturdy independence is next to be noted. No 
man ever stood more squarely on his own two feet. 
He would take no favors that cost him any sacrifice of 
manhood. He was ambitious; no doubt about that; 
from his youth he cherished the hope of winning honor 
from his fellow men, but he meant to win it by 
deserving it, not by scheming for it. He never asked 
for a nomination ; never winked an eyelid to secure 
one. When, after his third election to the governor- 
ship, the people of Ohio began to couple his name 
with the Presidency, he gave himself no concern about 
it. " No man," says Mr. Howells, " could hear himself 
much talked about for the chief place in a nation like 
this without feeling some share of the popular excite- 
ment, but no man w^as less capable of pushing himself 
for such a place than Hayes. We have seen many 



34 

letters of his, written during the period when the 
movement in his favor was gathering strength and 
Ibrm — and Uiev all ])oint to the fact that, while he 
was not indifferent to it. he was firmly resolved to 
have nothing to do with it. in one of these letters, 
shown US hy his correspondent, he wrote: 'I am not 
pushing, directly or indirectly. It is not likely that I 
shall. If the sky falls we shall all catch larks. On 
the. topics you name., a busy seeker after truth would 
hnd my views, in speeches and messages, but 1 shall 
not help him to find them. I appreciate your motives 
and your friendship. But it is not the thing for 3'ou 
and me to enroll ourselves in the great army of office- 
seekers. Let the currents alone.' " " I can do noth- 
ing," he wrote to another intimate friend, " to aid 
myself." And then, in allusion to reports that he had 
entered into alliance with certain politicians, he saj's : 
"The truth is, I am in no way complicated, entangled 
or committed with the parties you name or anybody 
else." I suppose that no President, for the last fifty 
years — perhaps no President since Washington — has 
gone into office so absolutely free from obligations as 
he was. When his cabinet was announced, that fact 
was evident. Nothing was ever plainer than that that 
cabinet was made by one hand, for one purpose — not 



35 

to pay debts, not to ])leM8e (he i)oliticians, hut simply 
to give the country a good administration. 

Closely related to this trait of independence was his 
calm self-reliance. He knew himself; and he knew 
that there was one man in Ohio who could be 
depended on. He knew his powers, and was assured 
tluit they would not fail him. He knew his purposes, 
that they were unselfish, honorable, worthy of realiza- 
tion; and he expected to realize them. In his diary, 
while the discussion was going on about his candidacy, 
these words were written : '' With so general an 
impression in my favor in Ohio, and a fair degree of 
assent elsewhere * * * I have supposed that it 
was possible I might be nominated. But with no 
opportunity and no desire to make combinations or to 
lay wires, I have not thought my chances worth much 
consideration. I feel less diffidence in thinking of this 
subject than perhaps I ought. It seems to me that 
good purposes and the judgment, experience and firm- 
ness I possess, would enable me to execute the duties 
of the office well. I do not feel the least fear that I 
should fail." There isn't a grain of conceit about 
that; but it is a man that you hear talking. 

His faith in principle was also perfect. The right 
is for him the expedient — the thing that ought to 



36 



be done can be done; it is, after all, the easiest and 
safest thing to do. It was this that made his choice 
so clear and his counsels so unfaltering in the days 
when financial follies had become epidemic. 

And, finally, the one comprehensive word which 
sums up his highest and strongest qualities as a 
public man is patriotism. This takes your thoughts, 
perhaps, to the tented field — to the bivouac and the 
march and the battle; and it took him thither, beyond 
a doubt, and made of him a soldier of whom Grant 
said: "His conduct on the field was marked by 
conspicuous gallantry, as well as the display of quali- 
ties of a higher order than mere personal daring." 
But the patriotism of General Hayes was not consum- 
mated when he tore off his shoulder-straps and 
unbuckled his sword. The best of it, the bravest of 
it, was yet to come. The patriotism of General Hayes 
was love of country, of the whole country — not of 
any section — though he was j)roud of his own com- 
monwealth; not of any jjarty — though lie was a 
loyal Republican — but of the whole land, the whole 
people. There are plenty of men to whom patriotism 
is a mere sentiment; the only motive that really 
moves them in i)ul)lic affairs is love of party. To 
that their real loyalty is given; their conduct abund- 



3 7 

antly shows that they would rather see their country 
sutler loss at the hands of their own party than 
prosper at the hands of their opponents. No matter 
how beneficent a measure may he, it shall not prevail 
if they can help it, unless their party can hold the 
offices. The other party they count as tlie enemy ; 
it is the word by which they unilbrmly speak of it ; it 
is the conception under which they always think of 
it. Their political plans stop short, therefore, with the 
promotion of the success of their own party ; the other 
half of their fellow citizens are practically aliens. Now 
this is not the spirit of patriotism. No thorough-going 
partizan can claim to be a patriot. He is a kind of 
semi-patriot, a lover of half his country ; and even as 
a half-truth is often the worst sort of a lie ; so this 
intense partizanship which makes a man think of his 
political opponents as enemies is the root of the most 
pestilent political immoralties. Now President Hayes 
was a man who, although a loyal supporter of his own 
party, never lost sight of the fact that his primary 
obligation was to the country, and not to the party. 
He would not sacrifice the public interest to the inter- 
est of his party. To him party was only an instrumen- 
tality, not an end; he would use it just so far as he 
could make it serve justice and righteousness, no 



38 

further. When lie saw that parties were cominjr to 
exist mainly for the sake of hohliiig the offices, he 
struck at that vice with all his streni:;th. "This sys- 
tem," he said, "destroys the independence of the 
separate departments of the government; it tends 
directly to extravagance and official incapacity; it is a 
tem])tation to dishonesty; it hinders and im])airs that 
careful supervision and strict accountability by which 
alone faithful and efficient public service can be 
secured ; in every way it degrades the civil service and 
the character of the government. It ought to be 
abolished. The reibrm should be thorough, radical and 
complete." He did what he could to secure this end. 
And he determined to take the stumbling blocks out of 
iiis own path. •* ndieving," he said in his letter 
of acceptance, 'Mh:it the restoration of the civil service 
to the system established by Washington, and followed 
l)y the early Presidents, can be best accomplished by 
an Executive who is under no tem[)tation to use the 
patronage of his office to secure his own re-election, 1 
desire to perform what I regard as a duty, in stating 
now my inllexil)le pnri)ose, if elected, not to be a 
candidate lor election to a second term." He said it. 
and he stood by it. Nobody who knew him had any 
doubt that he woidd do so. t'ongress sneert'd at his 



39 

proposition to reform the civil service, and refused to 
make any appropriation by which the work could be 
carried on; but in spite of Congress he introduced the 
reformed methods into some of the most important 
offices ; and when he believed that certain high officials 
of his own party were using their patronage to reward 
political workers, he incontinently turned them out, 
and told their successors that the offices must be con- 
ducted on strictly business principles. He had done 
what he could, in the same direction, when he was 
Governor of Ohio. In one of his inaugural addresses 
he strongly urged that our state institutions be put 
upon this basis ; that officers and employes should be 
appointed on business principles, and riot as a rewai'd 
for political activity. " When he was Governor,'' says 
Mr. Howells, "he was importuned by old and dear 
friends to turn out the Democratic State Librarian, and 
give the office, one of the few in the Governor\s gift, 
to a most worthy and competent Republican. He 
refused. "The iDresent incumbent,'' he wrote, '"of the 
librarianship is a faithful, pains-taking old gentleman 
with a family of invalid girls dependent on him. His 
courtesy and evident anxiety'- to accommodate all wlio 
visit the library have secured him the endorsement of 
almost all who are in the liabit of using the book-s. 



40 

and, under the circumstance?, I can not remove him. 
Old associations, your titness and claims draw me the 
other way, but you see, etc., etc. Very sincerely, R. B. 
Hayes.'' 

It is in this determination to keep the claims oT 
party subordinate to the interests of the whole public 
that 1 discern the keynote of President Hayes's patriot- 
ism. That famous phrase of his inaugural in 1S77, 
"He serves his party best who serves his country 
best," illustrates his divergence from the common run 
of politicians. How impossible it is to get that co)i- 
ception into the mind of the average political leader. 
And yet how bright the maxim shines in the light of 
President Hayes's example. No recent President was 
less of a partizan ; none was so successful a political 
leader. He found his party in the Slough of Desi)ond. 
and he left it on the Heights of Victory. And this he 
did by simply ignoring all schemes of party aggrandize- 
ment, and giving himself, with a single eye and a 
resolute purpose, to the service of the whole country. 

What he did for tlie pacification of the South was 
done upon the same principle. He had helped to 
conquer the South; but he was man enough to see 
that the era of subjugation must come to an end; 
that the South must be free to govern itself. There- 



41 

fore he pledged himself, in his letter of acceptance, 
to put forth his best efforts ''in hchalf of a civil 
policy which will wipe out forever the distinction 
between North and South in our common country." 
That promise, also, he kept. The South was pacified. 
No ideal condition of things was realized in that 
quarter; but a great political improvement took place. 
The negroes certainly fared no worse than they had 
done under the policy of repression ; the temper of 
the Southern people was marvellously improved, and 
the new era was well begun. So perfect was this 
work of peace, that the Southern question, which 
for a quarter of a century had been the burning 
question of our politics, was not mentioned in the 
first message of President Hayes's successor. What 
a triumph of statesmanship that was, let the future v 
historian tell. 

With the even mind of the man who has per- 
formed great duties manfully, and borne great trials 
uncomplainingly. President Hayes laid down the bur- 
dens of office in March, 1881, and turned his face 
homeward. Malignants among his opponents followed 
him with their curses; the spoilsmen of both parties 
barked at his heels, of course ; the men whose interest 
in politics was mainly selfish all hated him with a 



4-2 

cordial and ju^titiaMo luitred, and never lost a chance 
to revile liini. The dispraise of such men is a 
decoration. V^'oe to you when they speak well of 
you I The President bore to his home the grate- 
liil assurance that the men to whom ollice is simply 
])lunder owed liim no uood will. But he carried with 
him, also, the respect, the honor, the atfection of 
the great body of honest people of both parties. 

To his old neighbors in Fremont, who greeted him 
on his return, he said : 

"The question is olten heard, MVhat is to become 
of the man — what is he to do — who. having been 
chief magistrate of the Republic returns at the end 
of his olHciai term to private lifeT It seems to me 
that the answer is near at hand, and sulficient : Let 
him. like every other good American citizen, be will- 
ing and prompt to bear his part in every useful 
work that will promote the happiness arid the pro- 
gress of ins family, his town, his state, and his 
country. With this disposition he will have work 
enough to do, and that work of a sort which yields 
more individual contentment and gratification than 
belong to the more conspicuous employments of the 
life he has left behind." Maidy words are these; but 
what lu.ster his life since that day has shed upon thi'ml 



43 

How modestly, how patiently, how industriously he 
has given himself, in the last dozen years, to all 
kinds of good work. To the wise dispensation of 
great charities, to the study of the conditions of the 
dependent classes — more especially to the great cause 
of education in all its phases, he has consecrated 
the ripeness of his wisdom, the maturity of his man- 
hood. Few men in this land have done so large an 
amount of unremunerated service. '• I thought," he 
said to me a year ago, as he paused on the thi-esh- 
old of ray study, '' that when I laid down my 
official cares I should have a tolerably eas^' life ; 
but I have been kept about as busy for the last ten 
years working for other people, as I ever was in my 
life. And I don't deny that I enjoy it."' To our 
own university the service that he has rendered has 
been invaluable; the loss that it has suffered in his 
death it is not easy to compute. 

President Hayes was reticent, I judge, about his 
religious experience. He was brought up in the Pres- 
byterian Church; with his wife, while she lived, he 
was a constant attendant upon the Methodist Church; 
I do not know that he formulated lor himself any 
creed ; he was content, probably, with a very short 
statement of some Of th'' fundamontal truths of 



44 

ivliiiioii. He was proiVjiiiidly interested in the truth 
which constitutes ihc hoart ot all faiths; and he was a 
sympathetic and appreciative listener in the house of 
God. lie asked me, not long ago. if I knew a certain 
minister of our own communion. I replied that I had 
known him from his Seminary days. '' AVell," he said, 
'' I heard him preach last Sunday at Brattleboro, Ver- 
mont. And il was a very line sermon. You know," 
he adiled, willi a humorous twinkle " we always think 
that a man who agrees wilh us is an able man. But 
the text of this sermon was a striking one: 'The 
second is like unto it.' That was all there was of the 
text ; Itut it was enough, 1 assure you, to furnish the 
foundation of a very strong discourse."' 

I c(.uld easily l)elieve it. ''The second is like unto 
it," — equal to it. It is what our Master says about 
the second great commandment of the law. The tirst 
great commandnient is '* Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart,'' the second is like unto it — 
equally binding, equally fundamental, equally religious, 
"Thou shall love thy m-ighbor as thyself." The fact 
that had made its impression uj)on the President's mind 
was the equivalence of these commandments. That 
indicated his hearty recognition of both of them. But 
1 sup])osf that il he had been challenged to confess his 

Lire. 



46 

faith, it would have been uttered in the words of the 
beloved apostle: "He that loveth not his brother, 
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he 
hath not seen?" And if the word of that apostle is 
true — that "every one who loveth is begotten of God 
and knoweth God," then the unselfish ministry of the 
last ten years would prove that the first great com- 
mandment was also the law of his life. 

It is not easy to convince our hearts that this good 
friend of ours is not to be seen among us again. He 
was wont to come frequently; it was good to hear of 
his arrival; it was pleasant to meet him in the street; 
there was always a little more courage for work after 
we had looked for a moment into his face. Here was 
a man, we said to ourselves, who has lived. What an 
answer is his life to the plea of the mercenary poli- 
tician that success is impossible to the unselfish 
patriot! Who, among all these schemers and tricksters 
will ever reach the height on which this man stood — 

" Who never sold the truth to serve the hour 
Nor paltered with the Eternal God for power!" 

But he has passed. And what remains to us is the 
memory of a clean-handed, clear-minded, simple-man- 
nered, great-hearted man, and the faith which his life 
has quickened in our hearts, that 



46 

" All good things await 
Him who cares not to be great, 
But as he saves or serves the State." 

He has gone. "The good gray head that all men 
knew," will not again be seen in our assemblies: 

" No more in soldier fashion will he greet 

With lifted hand the gazer in the street. 

O friends, our chief state-oracle is dead: 

Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood. 

The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute. 

Whole in himself, a common good. 

Mourn for the man of amplest influence, 

Yet clearest of ambitious crime. 

Our greatest, and with least pretense — 

Great in council, and great in war — 
» » * * * 

Rich in saving common-sense. 

And as the greatest only are 

In his simplicity sublime." 



PRESS OF MITSCHKE BROTHERS, COLUMBUS, O. 



